1/48 Tamiya Spitfire Vb

by Michel Jacqmain

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Here are some pictures of the last model I've made. It was built right from the box. I've only added seat belts that I made from lead foil that came from an empty Tamiya putty tube. It was really a lot of fun to build this kit since all the parts fit together very well. I used Tamiya and Vallejo Model Air acrylic paints together with my Hansa airbrush. The decals gave me a real headache. After applying the softening solution on the decals a lot of wrinkles appeared, which is normal, but they didn't disappear completely after drying and that made me really very nervous. So I applied some more solution several times until most of the wrinkles were gone. The last wrinkles were hidden by painting them with silver paint to simulate scratches in the paintwork. The decals are caught between two layers of Model Air gloss varnish. Panel lines were darkened with burned umber and black artist oil paint. Oil and fuel streaks were also painted with artist oil paint. I used titanium white artist oil paint to wash the camouflage and the roundels to simulate the fade of the colours by the sun. Some sand coloured pastel dust was applied to the tires and the sides of the fuselage.

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The aircraft was first placed on a base plate with autumn atmosphere. But this was the base plate of my 1/48 Tamiya RAF Mustang III, I made previously so I made a new base plate this time suggesting summertime.  

I started modelling when I was a kid, but between my let's say 20 and 32 I didn't build anything. At that time the books from Verlinden were my learning aids. Two years ago on a trip to France a found L'encyclopédie du modélisme Tome 1. Les avions, sous la direction de Rodrigo Hernandez Cabos, Histoire & Collections. This was the trigger together with the birthday present from my wife (a 1/40 scale radio controlled U-boat from robbe) to awaken the virus again. The French magazine Wing Master taught me a lot about the modern techniques and tricks like pre shading, silver coloured pencils, the use of blue tack to create soft edge camouflage, ect... A lot of things changed in 15 years and the evolution is still going on. It's a really nice hobby.

Greetings from Belgium.

Michel

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Photos and text © by Michel Jacqmain